Video: How Fracking Has Changed One Woman’s Life

Tachia Sandoval moved to Las Animas County, Colorado to find peace and beauty for her and her many animals. Then the fracking started.

Photo by Katie Camosy / Greenpeace.

What would you do if one day you woke up and the water in your well was a brown, viscous mess?

That’s what happened to Tachia Sandoval, almost twenty years ago. She came from Albuquerque to Las Animas County, Colorado in the 1990s, getting away from decades in the city to live on the land and get back to her country roots. She found a beautiful piece of land with a modest house that she made into the home of her dreams, a place for her and her many animals to roam, and some space to spend more time making the art and jewelry that give her life balance.

But not a year had passed before the fracking started all around her. Dozens of roads to hundreds of wells went up. The sound of rumbling trucks replaced what had once been silence. And the water went foul. Now Tachia spends many hours each week hauling water to and from her land.

Colorado has been overrun by the oil and gas industry in the last few decades. It is one of the most fracked states in the country, with tens of thousands of active wells dotting the once pristine landscape, roads to and from them stretching across the land like thin scars. The oil and gas industry eyes it as a growth opportunity, sending tens of millions of out of state dollars into Colorado’s political system to buy the legislation it wants.

Just last summer, Greenpeace stood shoulder to shoulder with the grassroots anti-fracking activists of Colorado in trying to get some commonsense rules on the books. One initiative would allow communities like Tachia’s to democratically say no to fracking. Another would set fracking wells at a reasonable distance from important town infrastructure, like schools, hospitals, and homes.

We met Tachia during last summer’s fight, and are humbled that she helped us tell her story.

Photo by Katie Camosy / Greenpeace.

Protecting water from the oil and gas industry is a growing concern.

Just as Indigenous communities have come together to stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which threatens a major water supply, so too are communities coming together to protect their groundwater from fracking. But in states like Colorado, where a weakening industry and its cronies have to buy the political system to remain viable, it can feel like an uphill battle.

What can you do? You can make climate change, renewable energy, and the protection of local communities a decisive issue this November. Help elect local, state, and national politicians who do not have ties to the oil and gas industry.

And if you live in Colorado, vote against Ballot Question 71, also known as Raise the Bar. The oil and gas industry, along with itsfriends, has pumpedmillions into thismeasure, which would effectively make placing measures on the state ballot nearly impossible, unless you too have millions of dollars to burn. Many newsoutlets have come out against the ballot, including the paper of record, which isn’t known as particularly unfriendly to the oil and gas industry.

Tachia is one of thousands of Coloradans out there campaigning against 71. And we’re with them.

UPDATE 11/09/2016: Sadly, Ballot Question 71 passed on November 8, but this isn’t the end of the story. Greenpeace stands with communities in Colorado and across the world fighting to protect their water and land from being sacrificed to fossil fuel companies. Stand with us.